As someone who’s father, brother and sister have served in the Armed Forces, Bob Novak’s column about the scandalous foot dragging in the Pentagon about not creating a system where soldiers can be assured of being able to vote caught my attention.

I assume the biggest concern for most soldiers isn’t weighing in on their city council races.

Here’s my idea: Have each of the 50 states produce a special soldiers’ ballot by August 1 that has Presidential, U.S. Senate and the House races on it. States could add more statewide races if they wanted like judges or state attorney general. (You could also make the ballot invalid if they marked more than one House race or you drop the idea of having the US House on the ballot.) But it wouldn’t be a local ballot.

States that have primaries in August are the only hitch. But even then you could work something out. You could simply have the ballot have the presidential candidates and have “Republican candidate” and “Democratic candidate” under the Senate and House races if they are not finalized.

In time, perhaps states like Florida that have August primaries would move their primaries to July to adjust to this proposed system.